During a recent conversation with MB Live from Mexico, Marko Hietala, ex-bassist and vocalist of NIGHTWISH, was asked about the possibility of him ever reuniting with the band.
“I don’t really think so. I mean, the guys and the ladies, they weren’t really aware how deep my troubles [with depression] went,” he responded. “I did try to talk about them quite a lot, but also since I wasn’t totally aware.
“The only thing that I had was that I talked to my doctors and psychiatrists every now and then. And then we would try some different pill or a combo of these pills and all that. And they never just went all the way through. They would stop working at some point of time because, yeah, we were trying to medicate symptoms.”
Hietala also admitted to experiencing a significant degree of “pressure” during his tenure with NIGHTWISH.
“Yeah, about the business and the way, how it goes and the change of companies and daughter companies and all that,” he said. “And how it goes is that everybody’s looking to get a penny from your a*s. And it’s really boring. But then again, you kind of have to live with it if you’re gonna be doing this and recognize how much you have opportunities to influence and change things. And so far the copyrights and musicians rights and all that, they are not up to the level. And, of course, with these days of the heavy right-winger populist politics and all that, they’re not really caring about those, but they do care about them companies who can, again, a penny out of my a*s.”
Marko left NIGHTWISH in January 2021 explaining in a statement that he hadn’t “been able to feel validated by this life for a quite a few years now.” He has since been replaced by bassist Jukka Koskinen (WINTERSUN), who made his live debut with NIGHTWISH in May 2021 at the band’s two interactive experiences.
